“Is there anything else I can do for you, dear?” The elderly lady said with a nice smile, but Seira shook her head. “I will take another look around, but I believe I already found everything I need, thank you very much.” She gave her a polite smile in return and continued her journey through the small stationary shop. In spite of its tiny size the store had a fantastic amount of items in store, pens of different kinds, as well as notebooks, different paper types and even cute, little stamps one could use to decorate their planner with. Seira was quite fascinated that she had found a place like this in Hargeon Town, but after all she did need somewhere to purchase simple stuff like this and this place seemed just perfect. Of course the people who lived here, all the children that went to school and whatnot also needed a store where they could buy the simple items that every desk nowadays needed, but Seira herself had always had a special affection for adorable stationery items and when she was younger she used to collect them as well. Nowadays, now that she was constantly traveling through the country to find jobs she wasn’t exactly as active anymore and she didn’t collect as many things simply because there was only so much a wanderer could carry around—naturally—but Seira still allowed herself to buy herself something nice every now and then and today was one of those days. She walked through the store and looked around, wondering if there was anything else she was interested in. She already owned a planner, so she had only gotten a few cute stamps, a pencil case with some new pencils and a few stickers for herself, which she had yet to pay for. Furthermore, Seira enjoyed being able to look around through shops even though it had already gotten quite late and the stores in Hargeon would probably close within an hour or so. Thankfully, there was nothing else that had to be done and she had allowed herself a day of rest after working every day ever since she had arrived here. Today, she had just been lazily looking around town and done some shopping and Seira was quite pleased by the way things were developing for herself. She was handling this new life of hers better than she thought she would and she very much enjoyed every moment of being a vampire. Slowly, but surely, Seira had grown more confident and being what she was and she began to understand that this other race that she was now a part of, even though it still sounded mythical and strange to her, not only made her stronger, it also made her faster, quieter and so, so much better at everything. The most irritating event of them all had, perhaps, been the fact that she lost her magic due to it. Seira had always loved her nature magic and she had always been connected to nature, but now it was completely gone.

Her nature magic had vanished into nothingness ever since the transformation had been completed. Seira’s first time drinking human blood had triggered the vampyre gene that Bianca had manifested into her body and it had simply vanished from her which, in a way, she could understand. Vampyres were dark creatures of the night, nightwalkers so to speak, and there was nothing good or pure about them. Even though she could consider herself a good person, what she was, the being she had become, would always be aligned to darkness and there was no helping or changing that. Strangely enough, Seira had reached a level of apathy in which she did not care whether or not what she had become was considered good or bad. The woman simply felt relieved that she had found a way to defend herself properly and she was, without a doubt, stronger now. Besides, it wasn’t as if she had completely lost her magic. Seira had simply gone through some changes and she knew that there was still magic inside of her—she simply had to train it to utilize it. Of course no great things came from nothing and it had been the same with nature magic. Back then, Seira had always been more of a pacifist, she didn’t enjoy combat, she did not enjoy fighting and as a result she simply never did anything like that. She avoided it and all had been well. Of course she knew how to defend herself if she ever had to, but generally speaking everything she did was calm and far off from violence. But those times were over soon and for as long as she could earn money without having to use strong magic she would, but at the same time Seira was well aware of her potential. She had a lot of it and while most of it was unused and stored away, if she started utilizing it she could become ridiculously powerful. Seira had huge amounts of mana in her small body and even in spite of her dainty looks, could be considered a fairly high ranked wizards. She knew that if she trained enough she could learn high ranking spells that could, most likely, make a difference in any fight but as of now she wasn’t interested yet. All she wanted to do right now was to continue her work and travel around. Surely, she would be out of Hargeon within the next week and she also began preparing herself for the big travel. Seira’s last remaining goal for now was to reach Oak Town, where the mysterious Phantom Lord guild was supposed to be. During her encounter with Bianca she had gotten a glimpse of the guild’s tattoo, making the other vampyre a member of said guild. And while she didn’t exactly know what to expect and what answers she would get once she arrived there, Seira had a feeling it would be good. Besides, Oak was most likely a good place to find work.

Seira had never been to Oak personally, because the city was too far north for her taste. There were other places she had been to, naturally, and they were equally far away but Oak was simply a mystery. Perhaps it was because of Phantom Lord themselves, a dark guild that presented itself with so much confidence even in spite of the huge amount of light guilds that the country had, could only mean trouble. It did make her curious as to what exactly was going on in a place like that, what the infrastructure of their society was and how close their bonds were, but that goes for guilds in general. Seira had little knowledge when it came to those and the young woman often wondered how her life would change if she became part of a guild. Right now, she was alone. She had no one but herself to support her and even though it sounded sad, Seira was okay with that. She didn’t know anyone, she made a few acquaintances here an there, mostly clients, but those meant nothing if you just thought about it. She didn’t have any friends, no other mages she knew and could share her experiences with and while she sometimes desired to have someone like that (after all, no one wanted to be alone for the rest of her life), she wasn’t going to press it either. Seira had always been awkward, even more now that she was a vampire and most people looked like delicious food to her. She figured that it was best for her to start getting to know people after she was a hundred percent sure that she was going to eat them in a moment of despair and need and while as of now the vampire had been perfectly able to control herself, she didn’t know what she would do if she was injured on a battlefield full of bleeding bodies. It wasn’t her conscience that stopped her from feeding on other people but rather her mind that reminded her of how inconvenient it would be if someone actually found out about what she was. Seira had a bad feeling that, if vampires existed after all, certain people and perhaps even the magic council already knew about their existence and the last thing she needed was, of course, to be exploited and captured by them. Seira didn’t want to serve as anyone’s guinea pig to be experimented on so she lived quietly without causing too much ruckus. She knew that eventually she would have to start feeding on humans, but she would wait until she was ready to do so. Practice made perfect, they said, but Seira needed a place where she could not only practice but also dispose a body if she had to in case things went horribly, horribly wrong. With all those thoughts on her mind, Seira returned to the elderly lady and paid for all the items she had bought. “Thank you and please visit again.”

She left the store with a smile and walked onto the streets. The street lanterns had already been turned on and it was slowly getting darker and darker. This was now Seira’s favourite time of the day, but even as a human she had always been very fond of night time. She walked through the streets with the little paper bag of things she had bought in her hand and noticed that still, even though it was getting late, quite a few people were outside and going by their businesses. She also spotted many people buying groceries, which made perfect sense considering that many people worked during the day and only had time at night to buy groceries. Seira decided that she was going to stop by the inn for a moment to put away the items she had purchased earlier. The inn she lived in was a lovely little place close to the harbour and when she woke up she was able to have a perfect view onto the ocean. Unfortunately, there were also many seagulls which is why she had to sleep with her windows closed, but Seira was okay with that. She walked down the streets and towards the harbour, thinking to herself that perhaps after storing away her purchase she could take a walk along the docks to see what was going on. She had found quite a lot of opportunities there before and there were people who were willing to pay a good amount of money for undercover work that wasn’t exactly legal, but Seira couldn’t care less about that. The ends justified the means and she wanted as much money as she could possibly get. Seira entered the inn and greeted the people who worked there before walking upstairs into her room. Seira always looked her room twice and made sure to let the maids know not to enter it while she was out, because she stored certain things in there that she didn’t want others to see. Mainly the blood bags she had stolen from the hospital. Seira put the stationary items down on the desk next to her planner and walked over to the fridge, where she would grab one of said blood bags and started drinking from it. While she enjoyed her meal she also sat down at the chair and looked through her planner. The last week had Reagan Hullston’s name written all over it, for a good reason. The man was a smuggler who had his business here in Hargeon Town. He worked with pirates and together they smuggled illegal goods into the country and over the border of Fiore to make a good amount of money. So far she had been able to earn a good amount of money simply by working only for him, and according to Seira this could remain this way. She felt almost like a merchant doing someone elses dirty work against money, but if that was what she was then it couldn’t be helped.

After Seira finished her meal she changed her clothes. She tied her hair up in a ponytail and wore a long, black coat together with black boots and gloves. This outfit wasn’t really as suspicious as it sounded, but it helped her blend into crowds in case she needed to. If she ran into someone she knew today and possible earned herself a job then the vampire wanted to be prepared. She left the inn again and walked through the night. The harbour wasn’t too far away, neither were the docks and she arrived after about fifteen minutes of walking. Even though it had gotten late already the harbour was was busy as ever. Many ships came in today, as it was the beginning of the week and Rune Knights, security guards and the people who worked on the ships had plenty of work to do. It was a busy crowd of people yelling at each other and walking from a to b, carrying crates around and such and somewhere, among them, Seira heard a familiar voice yelling. She scouted a little bit closer and eventually caught sight of none other than Reagan himself, who was in a heated argument with two Rune Knights. From what Seira was able to overhear, Reagan’s wares were illegal (nothing surprising here, she thought to herself with a smirk) but apparently they shouldn’t have been, which led to an argument. Apparently Reagan had ordered some goods thinking that they were legit and now he wasn’t able to retrieve them, which was understandably very annoying. As soon as the Rune Knights let him go with a warning the man walked off and Seira followed him quietly, without making the tiniest sound. As soon as they were far away enough and out of sight she revealed herself to him with a smile. “I thought the point of a smuggler was to avoid having confrontation with the Rune Knights or security, because all of your wares are illegal?” She said with a smirk which seemingly pissed him off. “Have you forgotten how to do your own work?” She said and tilted her head to the side to which Reagan responded with a sigh. “No, and neither have you hopefully. These goods are precious and I need them with me today. Retrieve them for me and I will pay you well. Balthazar is the one who has been shipping them, you are already familiar with him I assume so this shouldn’t be too much of a problem.” Seira nodded. She knew the pirate already and she assumed that he would recognize her as well if he had to. “The ship is close to the west coast of the beach, go get my belongings for me. Balthazar knows which ones I am looking for and I already paid for them.” That was all the information Seira needed and without a word the woman rushed away to find said ship, which was easily found because it was huge and quite daunting.

As soon as Seira spotted the ship she climbed all the way up and somehow managed to do so unnoticed. It was until until she jumped on deck when they noticed her presence. While some of the crew members were immediately suspicious, Balthazar did indeed recognize her and stopped them in their track. “This is Reagan’s carrier,” he said with his growling voice and Seira nodded with a smile. “Precisely, Captain, I am here to retrieve the wares that rightfully belong to Reagan Hullston. Apparently there have been some complications and as a result he sent me instead. May I?” The Captain nodded and pointed her towards a small, black crate that had a strange looking symbol on it. “This is the shipment he was supposed to receive today. You may take it with you.” The girl gave him a look before rushing over to the black box, which she would curiously inspect for a moment and then lift up. It was quite heavy and without her vampire strength a normal girl like her shouldn’t have been able to lift it that easily. Balthazar seemed to notice that and gave her a strange look when he saw her lift it up. It was almost as if he had his own assumptions, but the Captain was smart and didn’t make a comment. As Seira was about to carry the box off the ship, however, she was stopped by him for a moment. “In spite of today’s events, there are some things I have in mind for the future in which I will need your assistance. I know you do not only work for Reagan, so seek me out whenever you need work and I will be sure to do the same.” He said to her and she looked up and nodded at him. “Sure,” Seira wasn’t bound to a single client, and anyone who paid her money was okay in her book. At least this meant that she wouldn’t have to look for a job, knowing that Balthazar would most likely have something to do for her eventually. Thinking about his words for a while the girl climbed off the ship with the box in her hand and carried it back to where she had last seen Reagan. He wasn’t there anymore, but that was normal. He made it his habit to never stay in the same place for too long in case the Rune Knights showed up again and after looking around for awhile she eventually found him pretending to be a fisherman again. “I found what you wanted,” Seira said and put the box onto the floor next to him. “It’s heavy.” Reagan looked at the box and even opened it, but he did it in a way so that Seira wasn’t able to look inside. She was curious, but she didn’t bother him with it. “Everything that needs to be in here has been delivered. Take your reward and leave now.” He gave Seira a bag of money and she did what he had said and left.